O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave

– The Star-Spangled Banner

“I have decided to do a post which recognizes that next month our beleaguered country celebrates its 250th birthday. But in a subtle manner,” writes photograph collector Robert E. Jackson. “It focuses on stars in photography which makes a reference to the stars and stripes of our flag in some of the images.”

So, half a century since the bicentennial madness of 1976 we’re back to see the wonder of America all over again…

The stars at night
Are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas

– Gene Autry, Deep in the Heart of Texas

Let martial note in triumph float,
And liberty extend its mighty hand
A flag appears, ‘mid thund’rous cheers,
The banner of the western land.
The emblem of the brave and true,
Its folds protect no tyrant crew,
The red and white and starry blue

– Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa

All my life
Watching America
All my life
There’s panic in America
Oh Oh Oh, Oh
There’s trouble in America
Oh Oh Oh, Oh

– Razorlight, Trouble In America

“So this is where all the vapid talk about the ‘soul’ of the universe is actually headed. Once the hard-won principles of reason and science have been discredited, the world will not pass into the hands of credulous herbivores who keep crystals by their sides and swoon over the poems of Khalil Gibran. The ‘vacuum’ will be invaded instead by determined fundamentalists of every stripe who already know the truth by means of revelation and who actually seek real and serious power in the here and now.”

– Christopher Hitchens

It’s coming through a crack in the wall
On a visionary flood of alcohol
From the staggering account
Of the Sermon on the Mount
Which I don’t pretend to understand at all
It’s coming from the silence
On the dock of the bay
From the brave, the bold, the battered
Heart of Chevrolet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A

– Leonard Cohen, Democracy

American woman gonna mess your mind
American woman, she gonna mess your mind
Mm, American woman gonna mess your mind
Mm, American woman gonna mess your mind

– American Woman, The Guess Who

Or would you like to swing on a star
Carry moonbeams home in a jar
And be better off than you are
Or would you rather be a fish?

– Bing Crosby, Swinging on a Star

Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together
I’ve got some real estate here in my bag”
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And walked off to look for America

–  Simon & Garfunkel, America

Yankee detectives are always on the TV
Because killers in America work seven days a week
Never mind the Stars and Stripes, let’s print the Watergate Tapes
I’ll salute the New Waves and I hope nobody escapes

– The Clash, I’m So Bored With The USA

“Then, while the old man was clearing the lines and preparing the harpoon, the male fish jumped high into the air beside the boat to see where the female was and then went down deep, his lavender wings, that were his pectoral fins, spread wide and all his wide lavender stripes showing. He was beautiful, the old man remembered, and he had stayed.”

― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

Give tears for the parting, a murmur of prayer,
Then Forward! the fame of our standard to share!
With welcome to wounding and combat and scars
And the glory of death,—for the Stripes and the Stars!

– Edna Dean Proctor, The Stripes and the Stars

We’ve lots more from Robert E. Jackson on the site. And you can follow him here for more great stuff.